Customers who do not shop in a physical retail environment are increasingly demanding a seamless transaction regardless of which channel they wish to shop through. For example, a customer may wish to start a transaction by browsing a merchant website, then engaging with an online instant messaging (IM) chat session, and finish by calling a contact center to speak with a contact center agent to complete an order.
The effect of this ‘omni-channel’ or ‘multi-modal’ approach is that contact center systems and agents need to be able to deal with customer demands across the various channels, in a seamless manner. If a customer has spent time, say, filling a shopping basket online, it is frustrating to find that the contact center agent cannot see or interact with the contents of that basket during a subsequent phone call with the customer. Similarly, if contact with a customer begins with a phone call, the customer has a better experience if they are able to seamlessly ‘pick up’ an agent-initiated order or basket during a subsequent online session.
In the contact center itself, agents may handle telephone calls, emails, text messages and IM chat sessions with customers. Changing modes or channels is not uncommon. For example, a call may arrive from a customer with whom the agent has been chatting in an IM chat session for the past few minutes.
Screen sharing or co-browsing are technologies well known in the contact center industry. Here, the agent and customer are able to see a synchronized view of each other's online activity. In this way, the agent may be able to guide customer to a particular part of a merchant website, to (for example) display an item of clothing that the customer may be interested in.
Such an approach is also possible for an agent chatting with a customer through an online chat service.
Screen sharing and co-browsing have other benefits too. For example, a customer's sensitive data, such as payment card details, may be masked or blanked from the contact center agent. Such an approach may ensure security for the customer's personal data, as the contact center systems are never exposed to the customer's card details. Potential data breaches are therefore eliminated. Such approaches can help merchants deal with increasing regulation and compliance requirements, such as those set out by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2), etc.
Another technology presently used in contact centers, allows an agent to create a ‘shopping basket’ for a customer, and then to send the customer a payment request. Typically, the customer is emailed a payment link. Launching this link in a web browser, the customer can review the potential purchase, and then insert payment details to a secure website. The contact center systems receive confirmation that payment has been taken, and dispatch can take place.
However, the creation and sending of such a payment link to a customer typically requires a merchant to modify their existing order process. A process which was created for the internal use of a contact center agent may need substantial changes in order to allow a customer to enter their own payment details. Since session-related information cannot be easily transferred between agent and customer, it therefore remains difficult for contact centers to adequately provide true ‘personal shopper’ services, or to allow customers to shift channels during an interaction with the merchant.
Hence, there exists a need to improve both the present screen sharing and secure payments processes, as well as enhancing customer service.